


A Home in Each Other

by SlotMechanic



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Credence grew out his hair, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Newt thinks it suits him, Past Abuse, Tooth Rotting Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and gentle kisses, and wants to always show it as much as he can, newt being a supportive and appreciative boyfriend, who cares about credence so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8788237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlotMechanic/pseuds/SlotMechanic
Summary: The moment in time where Newt Scamander realized he does not understand human beings, but understands that he loves Credence Barebone more than he could describe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> -holds head in hands- I really love these two together. I want them to have nice dynamics and teach each other how to love and develop as people so much. This is set in a world where Credence is totally still alive and okay and ran off with Newt back to London and now they are living in an apartment together taking care of beasts while teaching one another how to heal from past traumas.

Newt Scamander would acknowledge that, when it came to others of the same species, he was not the greatest observer. 

Sure, he understood how humans acted. The biological reasoning behind their movements and the hormones in their brain that caused a certain reaction upon certain words, but, he could never truly understand why it was the way it was. The why of biology and the why of the human condition were, indeed, completely different sets of the same preposition. Ask him to observe the behaviors of a basilisk or the courting rituals of a hippogriff and he could do so with so much feeling and dedication to the cause that your ears would be rattled five times over with information you had never even imagined possible for one wizard to obtain. Ask him to sketch the image of a dragon, with bared fangs as she protected her nest, and he would paint with charcoal a drawing that captured the intensity of a mother's love and ferocity over the children she was instinctually bound to protect. Humans? They were much trickier. They took so much longer to garner the trust and understanding of than Newt had ever come across in all of his days of field work with magical beasts. Humans had a consciousness that creatures did not. One that made them fickle, tentative, and quick to change their minds. Human beings left scars not only on other's bodies, but in their hearts. 

There was no finer example of that then the man who had been living with him ever since he allowed him into his suitcase on the boat back from America to England. Credence Barebone was, perhaps, a little more beast than human at most times. Not the dangerous, jaw biting creatures everyone seemed to think Newt constantly worked with (which was preposterous in itself, he guffawed, assuming that all creatures were automatically things that would rip others heads off without a second thought) that was the obscuris. The creature inside of Credence, living in him like a parasite. That was the darkness of people live Graves and dark wizards. Those who only wanted to use him for that anger and jaw biting ferocity. No, Newt saw him more like a creature who had been abused. Kicked to the side and brought back into a home so many times he's grown weary of even the kindest of actions towards him, confused by its apparent normalcy. For him, normalcy had been marks lashed into his skin daily by a woman who had felt barely an ounce of motherly support for the boy she had raised. Normalcy had been days without meals and intimidating glares from others when he failed to do something without absolute perfection.  All the normalcy's Credence had revealed to expect in his daily life ever since his arrival in Newt's small, out of the way apartment close to Diagon Alley broke the researcher's heart every morning more than he could express in words.

 

"Newt?"

 

His name, spoken so softly from lips across the dining room table, stirred the other from out of his thoughts. His eyes returned to focus only to find himself staring at a familiar, confused face. It was a cute face, Newt observed with the most obvious glaze of affection in the pits of his pupils. Sharp cheek bones puffed out as the rest of his full mouth was slid into a pout. Credence's brows were furrowed with apprehension, a clear sign of him trying to search Newt's eyes the longer they stayed locked onto one another. The longer they breathed in each other's smell, mixed with morning tea and toast, in the dim light of the graying morning. He was lost in those thoughts again, and Credence tried one more.

 

"Newt!"

 

"Ah-! Yes, right, of course-." Newt finally returned to the physical plain, nearly hitting his knees against the table as he put his cup down and ran a hand quickly through his hair, eyes looking everywhere but what they were just focused on as the heat of being caught staring so blatantly caught up to his cheek bones, "Right now where was I-wait. Sorry. What was I saying?"

"You weren't saying anything," Credence replied assuringly, though he tilted his head, "Which was why I was worried. You keep...staring at me." Another long pause in the darker haired man's words and Newt watched with heartache as his eyes avoided him and his shoulders hunched into a cringed posture he had grown all to familiar with over months of spending time with Credence in close proximity, "Did I do something wrong...?"

"What? No, no no no no no-. Credence-" Newt leaned forward in his hands wrapping around the others as they rested atop the dining table. Credence almost flinched away, but resisted the urge. He reminded himself that Newt, in all his time here, had never once reached out to him in order to harm him. He had to trust that it would continue like. And it did, with Newt's hands covering up Credence's. The researcher maneuvered his fingertips so that they were entwined together. Thumbs, rough and calloused from years of managing the scales of colorful beings, stroked the back of his knuckles as softly as possible. Credence could feel the warmth from Newt's body seep into his own, extraordinarily icy skin. He was never able to get warm, for some reason, and the two have long given up trying to question it and have moved on to using it as an excuse to make their way into one another's bedside on particularly chilly winter nights. Newt held his gaze to Credence again, but for a completely different reason this time. With the intent on getting his message through to his lover. To reassure him as he had many times before. "You didn't do anything wrong, yeah? You're okay. It's okay. I was just-" A momentary pause- "Thinking."

Silence ticked by, but eventually Credence gave a slow nod of trust, showing that he understood the miscommunication clearly and that he wasn't bothered by it. Newt sighed with relief, but didn't untangle his hands from the other all at once. He allowed them to stay together, smiling fondly at the contrasting tones of their skins and the marks that littered them. 

"What...were you thinking about?" 

The question was hesitant, filled with double meanings. 'Only if you want to tell me' it had said, 'you don't have to if you don't want to.' 

Only, he did want to. He really, truly wanted to. Whatever he thought, especially when concerning Credence, he wanted to share it with him right away. To tell tales and ideas to a companion who would listen to him with genuine interest. Who would keep his eyes on him and never take them off as he spoke. The openness with which Credence took in the information he spilled was new to Newt, as well. No one listened to what he had to say with such vivacious interest. Well, people rarely listened at all. They pretended to out of curtesy here and there, but, never honestly. His interests were hard to find people to match with on most occasions. Having Credence around, who soaked in all of his given information and helped him to create new knowledge as they worked together in his suitcase with whatever beasts they had managed to gather newly in their time together, was a prayer he had never known he had given up to Merlin answered. And here he was, all wide eyes and tentative yet curious gazes as he waited for him to speak. 

Newt reached out with one hand, keeping his other against Credence's, and stroked the boy's head with a thoughtful, kind quirk of the corner of his mouth.

"Your hair." He finally answered in a hushed tone, "I think it's beautiful, this length...Suits you."

Newt watched as the rush of pink returned to Credence's framed face. It was the truth though. Months of living together had meant months of forsaking Mary Lou's horrendous bowl cuts. Newt had made use of trimming scissors upon the other's hair at first, gently cutting away at the bangs that grew too long in Credence's face and parting it where he thought it might look more decent than down the middle. The result was a mess of wavy, black locks framing Credence's thin bone structure in a picture perfect dream. Months more and it grew longer, brushing against his shoulders and tangling itself up easily at night as the unruly roots grew out faster than a whomping willow in springtime. It was the now satisfying length to where Credence could tie it up with a single hair tie when they were working together in the beastiary. Newt wasn't sure which one looked better on the other, and eventually decided that both suited him. 

He stood at the same time Credence began to fiddle with the long strands against his shoulder, clearly still self conscious about allowing his locks to grow out as he had. It was never allowed for him to grow it out in New Salem. Every time he attempted it, it was met with a beating and a forcible bowl cut from his foster mother while she scolded him for being so ungrateful. It was disapproving looks and rumors stirring about the orphanage as he casually attempted to avoid the subject in his household. Now with Newt, with freedom, he could grow it as he pleased. Experimented as he pleased. It brought the him both a sense of pride and dread all at once, mixing in the base of his gut more than he would ever like to admit.

That concotion of feelings was pushed away when a familiar set of hands found their way against his scalp. A momentary gasp of surprise, and then of delight, filled the otherwise quite morning kitchen as Newt worked his fingers against Credence's scalp. He massaged it and tugged tenderly at the locks of black hair, admiring how they slipped through his freckled fingers and rested against the base of the other's neck and shoulders. All the tension Credence had been carrying in the base of his muscles seemed to dissipate as he continued to comb his roommates hair through. Though his nails were blunt, he knew how to rub and tenderly reach all the right places when petting to calm creatures down. He had done it with Frank when he was still here. He still did it with the others meandering in the suitcase when they were frightened or agitated by another creature and their existence. It worked just as well with people who were tense and enjoyed having their hair pet. Now that Credence had a sufficient amount of hair, Newt had experimented with the action plenty of times. At first he was nervous and confused as to exactly what Newt was planning. Once he learned to accept it, however, Credence loved nothing more than to lay back and allow his hair to be stroked by those careful fingers of his. Likewise, Newt was fixated on the way Credence's hair was so perfect. So wavy and jet black and fell in the correct place every time he lifted up a lock. His hair was the true magic in this world, he had decided. 

They remained like that for a long while, Newt's fingers running against Credence's scalp and Credence allowing the softest of purrs to eminate from the base of his throat as he leaned his head back to look up at Newt with a shy, pleased smile. He was so beautiful when he smiled, Newt realized, and his heart skipped a beat at the sparkling look of love the other had given him. He could not help but return it, lips quirked upwards in the softest look of affection he could manage. Months ago, Credence would have never smiled. Never offer a gaze to Newt like the one he was giving now. Months ago, neither of them would ever think that this would be the situation they found themselves in with one another.

Ah, but then again, months ago they did not think they understood one another. Months ago, they had not built up the trust that glowed between the two of them now. Perhaps that was why Newt loved him, too. Like beasts, the trust had to be built. Credence did not demand what other humans demanded of one another so quickly. Some asked for sex and others for relationships days after knowing one another, choosing to get to know the person while at the same time being intimate. There was nothing wrong with that, of course! Newt admired them, actually. The way people fell for one another so quickly. So normally. In a world where he was not used to normal it was simply strange. Abnormal. 

 

Both he and Credence were abnormal. 

 

Perhaps that was why they fit together so well?

 

He did not stop himself from leaning down, capturing the other's lips in an upside down kiss with his hands still running as gently as possible through his hair. The action caught Credence by surprise and he tensed up. Newt was afraid, for a few moments, that he had overstepped his boundaries. He had pushed Credence too far too suddenly. Then a hand went back and around his neck, bringing him closer and carefully returning the kiss with an upside down smile on a perfectly sharp face and Newt calmed his beating heart down from the overthought he had just offered his own mind. They stood in the quiet of their home and kissed in the cloudy gray morning while their tea grew cold and their toast stale and neither of them cared nor minded because they were there. They were there with one another and, when the rest of the world had found them bizarre or given up on them, they had one another. They believed in one another from the very beginning and that was what they loved about each other. That was what Newt loved so much about Credence and the thought only made him want to kiss him harder, bring him closer, and hold him tighter. It was that thought that made his body shake as he held back a giddy laughter, feeling like a schoolgirl with a crush for the first time. The movement made Credence pull away and offer another cute, quizzical look as he faced himself right side up to Newt.

"What's so funny?"

A genuine smile spread itself across Newts lips as he shook his head, leaning down to bring Credence's mouth to his own properly and devoured his mouth a second time, gentle and caring with all the time in the world. And the other kissed back, confusion still warm on his tongue despite his enjoyment of his response.

"No-No nothing," He finally murmured out, lips inches from the other as he pushed their foreheads against one another. Both of their hair fell in front of them, obscuring their view but enhancing the experience, "Nothing at all I just-It's silly, really, it is...I just thought about how extremely lucky I am."

 

"Lucky? For what...knowing me?"

 

"Oh Credence," His voice, like his hair, was like caramel. Soft, chewy, and full of a dripping warmth that warmed even the coldest bones, "Anyone who knows you is automatically the luckiest person in the world...For me-the knowing you I do-or rather-how I know you...What we are...That's what's lucky."

 

Credence's response was only to reach up and touch the hand that was against his cheek, fingers tracing Newt's knuckles as his gaze faded off to the side for a moment, confused and filled with a sort of dark comedy as he murmured, "No one is lucky to know me."

 

"That's where you're wrong...What would you call me then?"

A long pause. One...Two...three ticks and more. Credence had no words. No excuse. Nothing to say to that because who in their right mind could find one word or even a thousand to describe someone like Newt Scamander and do it all in one day? One second? He would not be able to describe Newt with all the words in his vocabulary. And Newt, with all of his knowledge, would never understand how someone could look at Credence, with his face and eyes and gentle demanor, and see nothing but a demon. A monster. A weapon. It broke his heart all over again but the kiss placed upon his lips meanded it in a matter of moments and soon the both of them laughed in the quiet of their dining room. Theirs. Only theirs. Only each others.

"Should we go feed the Graphorns now?"

The question breaks the silence, but not uncomfortably. Newt simply gazes one last time at Credence and thinks about it all. How far they have come. How long his hair was. How beautiful smile was and how soft his lips were and how hopelessly, hopelessy fallen he was for this boy in his home. He lifted up one hand and gave the darker haired boy a playful pat on his cheek, causing a nudge and a smile to erupt in his eyes and the sparkle was transferred to Newt in an instant. The two stood. Newt offered his hand and Credence took it as they hurried off together into the bedroom where the suitcase of mythical and fantastic beasts resided. Their toast left to go stale in the dining room and their tea left iced by the chill, they abandoned the darker thoughts in preparation for lighter days.

Perhaps that was why Newt Scamander loved Credence Barebone so much. Neither of them were quite human, and neither of them would ever understand how humans worked. Neither of them would ever feel like they fit in, but, it was all okay. 

They would simply learn to find a home in each other. 


End file.
